A void of useless wisdom….

I’ve gotten into several arguments lately about the upcoming Godzilla adaptation for western audiences. I’ve argued, vehemently, that the film will be a monstrous disappointment.

But I’ve gone on hate tirades in the past on this journal and it’s never worked out well. So, instead, I’m going to rip the upcoming reboot completely out of the equation on this one and talk about what makes the 1954 film the giant that spawned not only the Godzilla franchise but in many ways the entire Tokusatsu genre.

See guys! He was only trying to catch a trai… I’m just going to stop.

I’ll explain a bit. Tokusatsu is the term used in Japan used for works that employ a lot of special effects. The term literally means “special filming” in Japanese. It’s often recognized by a portion of the techniques used in Tokusatsu called Suitmation wherein you’ll have an actor dressed up as a “rubber suit monster” as is the popular term. It’s basically what we in the west call “That Power Rangers crap.”

By combining suitmation and the careful use of miniatures the very film that started it all, Godzilla, is considered the genesis of Tokusatsu as it is known today. Now Tokusatsu is being considered a lost art as more and more effects are moving into computer generated territory. Many in the field have come to look at this as a tragedy as there are less and less young workers who wish to learn in their footsteps.

Godzilla itself is largely inspired by the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, released in 1953. There’s a complicated story behind that film and it’s similarities to a Ray Bradbury short story called The Fog Horn. I’ll skip that for brevity’s sake. Conceptually, the plot is similar to that of Godzilla, a creature from the depths is woken by an atomic blast and assaults a major city (New York in this case) until it’s struck down with a special weapon (in this film it’s a radioactive isotope).

Fuck they even look similar.

So why is Godzilla so famous and this is the first time you’ve heard of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms? Well it isn’t like it was badly made. Ray Harryhausen, the king of stop motion himself, put his heart and soul into animating that monster. I mean, in The Beast they do ride a roller coaster to kill the monster but is that it?

Here’s what I think why Godzilla stands out among so many of its contemporaries, even within its own canon. Gozilla is as much a movie about war and the advent of the atomic age as it is a monster movie.

When I compared the two I noticed something unique about the way Godzilla was shot. The first twenty minutes of Gozilla is, in reality, a series of shots of people reacting to a series of close encounters with Gojira… sorry Godzilla.

It’s sort of a writing cred thing to say his original name.

These are massive tragedies in scale, entire ships are lost and then the rescue ships are lost with only one survivor to barely describe what happened. Rather than taking the time to slowly set each scene the film rapidly establishes a crisis.

Throughout all of it are people reacting to this crisis. People in panic, worried about their loved ones. It becomes quite clear that this is a film talking about the tragedy of atomic warfare. There is as much commentary on the need to kill Godzilla in this film as there is Godzilla. In no way at any point do any of the measures used to waylay the king of monsters result in anything more than minutely slowing his progress.

As a creature awoken by atomic testing Godzilla is immediately portrayed as humanity’s fault rather than as some accident. The destruction of the ships in the opening is an actual reference to a real life atomic weapons test in Japan where a nearby fishing ship was destroyed with all hands.

Just as much is the case with the weapon that kills Godzilla, the Oxygen Destroyer. Its story is identical to that of atomic weapons, a technology originally used for peace but warfare applications were discovered. Dr. Serizawa fights at all turns to avoid using his own creation against Godzilla despite knowing it is likely the only thing that can kill the great beast.

In the end of the film Serizawa takes his own life and dies with Godzilla, taking his own technology to the grave so that it cannot be used to make more weapons and possibly prevent something else like Godzilla from arising from his own technology.

Though, ironically that would happen in the film Godzilla Vs. Destroyah wherein a creature (Destroyah) is created from the Oxygen Destroyer’s detonation and pre-historic creatures that were mutated from the experience. I don’t know how well that’s explored in that film though.

The ending keeps that same theme of tragedy right up to this point, that this is not a victory. Whatever knowledge that could be gained from Gozilla’s existence and from Serizawa’s own brilliant mind is lost. That is not even counting the untold lives lost when Godzilla assaulted Tokyo.

The film plays this completely straight. You can’t really make fun of any of the suit acting or effects. Too many people are being shown suffering and dying outright.

I mean there’s this shot but it lasts like two seconds.

It’s a truly strong commentary against war and the fact that despite the fact that they may be fighting for the right reasons, people still die needlessly in war. It warns openly against the use of such weaponry by humanity as it will only lead to more destruction.

It’s that strong underlying theme that makes it stand out among monster films and why Godzilla is the one true king of all monsters. Also he should have totally killed King Kong that one time! That was bullshit!

I’m going to share with you something I’ve come to realize. As many of you probably already know, this past April Fools Google put an add on into their mobile app for Google Maps. This allowed users to scan various locations and find 150 Pokemon at various points on the globe. Well 151 if you could find Mew which is a task harder than getting him in the actual bloody game.

Within hours players were scanning the globe finding Pokemon at various famous locations, why there was a Jolteon and a Charmander at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is kind of baffling. But within, say, six hours players on various internet boards began doing something that I think is quite remarkable.

They were working together.

People would find Pokemon and immediately share (mostly on Reddit but you really can’t beat the speed curve it has) the locations. Within hours they found all of them. Within a day they were charting Mew’s path, slowly whittling down variables to determine where he’d show up.

Now I’ve heard, repeatedly, how game developers bitch and moan about how they hate the internet. How they hate how people post videos for others to show them how to beat games. How they spend all this time developing and designing games to have a good progressive challenge and to have secrets for those who legitimately look for them.

Quite frankly I think that’s a load of crap.

This is a perfect example of what the phenomenon actually is: people sharing information. Free. There’s no profit gained from this and you can’t cite it as any kind of measurable achievement in terms of beating the game. It is just an act of goodwill. Granted there are some that are trying to become famous through video walkthroughs but even with that there’s still a large body of people who are just putting these videos online in tiny clips that function as how-to guides.

Even if you don’t want videos you can type in your game into Google search (I wish I could pretend there was another engine we were all using) and include your problem. Takes about twelve seconds to find a solution in some forum or Q&A board.

I think it’s positively amazing that anyone can get anything marginally approaching good advice on the Internet in this day and age. When there’s this large community of Let’s Players, FAQ writers, Q&A responders with methods of beating nearly every game, if not every game, that was wrought by humans.

I know it’s easy to hate people who you see taking a shortcut, but in that same breath you have to forgive those who want help from others. When that happens it isn’t just one person playing your game anymore, it’s a group of people working together playing the game individually but sharing knowledge.

It’s good that there’s a clear niche market for difficult video games. On top of that now more than ever it seems there’s a clear divide between games that implement good design features with unique challenges the players learn from. Instead of, you know, just arbitrary increases in damage and health and such. That’s why Dark Souls is now considered a great franchise and other games, the names of which I clearly didn’t take the time to research, aren’t.

Or at the very least players can tell the difference. That said, it isn’t like well-designed but difficult games haven’t existed before. If I had a classic difficult game that I needed to list then that game would have to be the one and only Demon’s Crest.

Put your war face on boy! You about to get spanked!

The game is specifically based on the Ghosts and Goblins series by Capcom. You pay as one of the red demons that once plagued Arthur. I believe their called Red Arremers in Japan.

I don’t god damn know what it means.

Part of the Gargoyle’s Quest series Demon’s Crest follows the journey of Firebrand. The intro explains that Firebrand fought over the possession of six magical crests (representing different elements yadda, yadda, yadda) that fell to the world. There was a massive war and in the end the last two standing holding the crests were Firebrand and the giant Demon Dragon. Because that’s a thing and it’s awesome.

Firebrand defeated the Demon Dragon but in his injured state from fighting a giant fucking Demon Dragon another demon named Phalanx defeated him and stole all six crests save for a single piece of the crest of Fire that Firebrand managed to keep. For good measure Phalanx locked Firebrand in a coliseum with the zombified (I think, I mean it looks like a zombie) remains of the Demon Dragon.

Shit tuckering fuck!

And that’s where the game begins. No I’m serious. You press start and you are locked in a coliseum with a zombie demon dragon. You are a red demon who can shoot fire and that’s where you begin. I’m pretty sure the description for that is “metal as fuck”.

You know. How the kids say it.

Anyway, this game is noted for being challenging to newcomers. Mostly because when you press start you’re locked in a coliseum with a Zombie Demon Dragon and if you didn’t watch the intro you don’t know why. Your health bar isn’t visible at this point and here comes this giant enemy sprite running for you.

So yeah. A bit intimidating.

However if you give it a few tries (or you read any game articles about the title at the time) you’d learn that Firebrand comes packaged with a few abilities. One he can shoot fire from his mouth and two, and this was the thing in 1994 that blew my damn mind, he can hover in mid-air. On command.

Imagine growing up in the age of platforming, losing countless lives to pits. Just random fucking pits. Pits fucking everywhere you land. Then you hear about a character that can stop falling and even move left and right while floating in midair.

To someone who never had such a feature before it was remarkably enabling, let me tell you, I can’t speak for others but I cackled.

So after a few tries one can easily determine the cause and effect of the Zombie Demon Dragon’s (No I will not get tired of saying that!) attacks. That’s right. Cause and effect. Not pattern. That’s the first lesson; enemies will react differently depending on what you do.

If you have enough cunning and learn you’ll eventually beat the dragon and escape. And then beat the dragon again because it keeps chasing you.

The first level of the game after forces you to learn how to control Firebrand’s position in the air, his fire shot and his ability to stick in place on walls. It does so through proper level design where you have to proceed the right way to advance. Soon enough you’ll find yourself facing bosses (one mid boss and one end stage boss) both of which are more than capable of beating rookie players into the dust. After all, by this point you’ll only have a small bit of health to keep you safe.

If you beat the first stage boss you’ll be rewarded with the first crest, that of the Earth that gives you a brand spanking new form with a different fireball attack and different abilities. From there several stages open up for your access. There are several more crests to get before the final battle with Phalanx and that isn’t counting health upgrades, magic scrolls to record spells, relics to boost abilities, and vials to hold potions.

So there’s plenty to find, alternate routes for alternate bosses (if you can find it and you’ve got the right gear) and three different endings depending on how much you collect. I assure you, it doesn’t get any easier either.
In terms of classic SNES games, especially that created by Capcom it’s almost unknown when compared to fellow classics from the time period. But, it’s still a great, well made, challenging game and definitely one you can learn to beat.

It looks like the classic film kick isn’t ending anytime soon. Which I find perfectly fine since this journal takes on an entirely new shape and form. Ish.

Anyway. The Secret of Santa Vittoria is a film created in 1969 based off of a massively award winning book realized in 1966 with the same name, written by Robert Crichton. So for all you people condemning the process, studios have adapted books into films for years. It’s just that some really shitty books are popular right now.

What the fuck is Divergent anyway?

Moving on! The film is something I was introduced to in the last few years and it’s largely one of the major factors that got me into watching classic films. In many ways it can be contrasted against Seven Samurai with the plot. But when I say that I certainly do not compare the two because the overall theme, structure, and methodology of resolving conflict are entirely different between the two films. I’d dare say the Guns of Navarone is closer, thematically, to Seven Samurai. I’d dare but I haven’t seen the former yet so I can only make limited speculation on that.

On to The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

It starts off in a small Italian village (the titular Santa Vittoria) set during World War 2. At the start of the film the village has just received the news of the death of Mussolini.

I’m going to have to explain the fallout of Fascism, aren’t I?

I am so under qualified for that.

Okay, in the context of this film you have to understand that Fascism in Italy was something like a great dream that just turned so sour. When Mussolini died it was a sign signifying how far everything had fallen despite his promise to move Italy forward into the 21st century.

There is so much more to this but I encourage you to research it at your own leisure. Anyway, in Santa Vittoria the people begin ousting the Fascists from power (once suitably roused from their daze) and during that time one man named Italo Bombolini (played by Anthony Quinn) gets drunk and climbs a water tower. In the ensuing attempt to get him back down the crowd ends up cheering him and the Fascists get the idea in their heads to surrender to him and make him mayor.

Which he accepts.

Yes, it’s just like the old Mad TV sketch.

Of course Bombolini comes out of his drunken stupor and is forced to become mayor, which by some miracle he makes work. The problem is that this is still World War 2 and the Germans are leaving Italy. Before they go, however they are trying to recoup their losses. As a result they are going from town to town and taking whatever they can.

Santa Vittoria, conversely, has one chief export: wine. They are so good at it that they have over a million bottles just sitting around fermenting. As it’s the town’s major export and a source of most of their money they can’t afford to lose it. They have no means of repelling the Germans and without the wine they’ll be finished.

So what follows is one of the greatest cons in the history of cinema with an entire town behind it and Bombolini as the face of the entire operation. And yet, somehow, the greatest clown in Santa Vittoria is the perfect man for the job. His over the top natural spectacle is so grand and real that it’s impossible, in the eyes of the Germans, that he’s even capable of conning them.

The deception with the wine and just the sheer lengths the characters go through to make it work are as humorous as they are dramatic. The entire CITY gives the illusion that they’ve completely submitted to the Germans. Except for Bombolini’s wife of course, who is dubbed by the city to be the “Greatest bitch in all of Italy.”

It’s that kind of film.

This entire situation reaches such a boiling point by the film’s end that you are honestly left wondering who will break first, the Germans or the people of the city. I’d be remiss without noting that the Germans in the film, rather than being clichéd villains are depicted as men with flaws and limits like any other. Considering their dominion over the city it would be easy to make them constantly oppressing the people. But they don’t and it’s a nice bit of restraint to see.

The interesting thing, for me, is just the contrast this film serves to others of its kind when you have a small people being oppressed by a larger force. There’s no great battle, no heroic stand, it is just a group of ordinary people using their own meekness as strength, giving the illusion that they aren’t even capable of creating a ruse like this. I so rarely see a film like this where such a plan is concocted. I can’t even recall one though I’m sure such must exist.

Conversely I can point to hundreds of films that take the Seven Samurai approach. Countless. The Secret of Santa Vittoria executes its own solution with such comedic and dramatic perfection and I encourage you to watch it.

Some folk out there might point and complain about Gundam Build Fighters, stating that it isn’t a true Gundam series and is nothing more than a toy commercial that completely invalidates the spirit of Gundam set forth with the original series.

However, that is a small margin of people considering the fact that this sucker exists.

I’m gonna let this sink in for a minute.

If you consider Mobile Fighter G Gundam’s legacy it’s certainly an odd duck if ever there were one. It was the first Gundam series to not follow the original timeline and was the first production after the series Victory Gundam, a Gundam series infamous for violence and death. Released in 1994 this series was the first to depart the now famous Universal Century timeline within which all Gundam stories had previously occupied since its inception.

It’s also a massive shift from a deep space military drama to a pure combat and fighting storyline. Normally Gundam was about how military factions battled and the stories of soldiers on the battlefield as they reconciled their beliefs with their actions. There was typically love stories, great enmity, all really revolutionary stuff for its time.

G Gundam, if compared to its predecessors is a massive departure of style and arguably a detriment to its legacy. It is the story of how humanity now uses a massive international giant robot fight to determine political battles. Each nation sends one representative in a giant robot to Earth from the colonies and they fight. The last man standing wins his country’s supremacy over all others.

But something strange is going on this year. Japan’s fighter is travelling around the world with a photo asking everyone he can find if they’ve seen the man in the picture. His name is Domon Kasshu.

Despite what you might consider a goofy premise people love this show. Myself included. It took me a while to realize why.

I think, looking at giant robot shows at the time was that what G Gundam did was not create a new type (ahahaha) of giant robot show. Rather it took the Super Robot Genre and matured it a great deal.

Normally in Super Robot Shows (what you consider something like Power Rangers) the violence isn’t depicted as serious and damage to the surroundings with little sense of the word collateral. G Gundam took that in an entirely different direction. At the beginning of the show it’s shown that fighters on Earth are hated by the populace because of how much damage they do every time the Gundam Fight happens. Domon is persecuted on his journey, doubly so because he is a fighter from another nation.

There’s a lot of work in this show to make the concept, which is admittedly quite silly, very mature and taken seriously. Every moment of Domon’s development as he uncovers the story of the man in the photo is wrought with tragedy and loss. Rather than shrinking from this, he’s shown persevering in the face of it, going from a simple vengeance seeking man to… something I won’t spoil.

On top of that the show devotes a great deal of time developing the other fighters as well rounded characters with complex motivations and not walking stereotypes.

Oh my god it has a mustache! Why does it have a mustache?

Okay some of them are.

On top of that, rather than having a single maniacal villain most of the enemies Domon fights have reasons for their actions driving them to these acts. There are also some brilliant bait and switches that go on throughout the series as characters’ true natures are revealed. In many ways it isn’t the Gundam franchise that profits from a Super Robot show but rather Super Robot shows that profit from G Gundam. It certainly took itself more seriously than many other shows of its ilk and where Evangelion stands as a condemnation of many of the tropes G Gundam matured them into a stronger story.

If there was one thing I could point at in G Gundam that was definitively said by fans and critics to be the show’s high point it would be the romance between Domon and his partner Rain Mikamura. The series takes all 49 episodes to develop their love story and the conclusion of that and the series is one of the most memorable moments in Anime. I can’t recall many declarations of love, especially among Giant Robot Shows that are as well written and are of as such quality as that entire closing monologue.

It’s certainly an interesting series and I invite you all to check it out.

There is a film out there that I think has tremendous merit and value. It displays an analysis of the relationships between men and women and most importantly a lot of the misconceptions men have about women.

Unlike many others that attempt the same, this particular film casts a nervous, jittery, overworked husband as the protagonist. On top of that a good portion of the film explores his imagination and how he often misconstrues situations because of modern stereotypes about men and women. I feel the film so well satirizes his outlook on things that it is a truly positive film, vastly ahead of its time and is an essential part of film viewing.

So why haven’t you heard of this film?

Oh you have. You just know it for the wrong thing.

You see this film stars Marylyn Monroe in the very scene which, regretfully, she’s best known for.

Yep! You know exactly what one I’m talking about.

Thar she blows!

This whole thing becomes quite ironic when you realize what the film is actually about.

The Seven Year Itch is a 1955 film based on the play of the same name (originally written by George Axelrod). Adapted for the screen it has Tom Ewell reprising the lead role from the play and, of course, Marylyn Monroe.

It opens with a clever explanation about how there is a culture in New York of businessmen that send their wives and children out of the city during the hot months of summer while they work. As a result many of them develop a wandering eye for single women and it’s implied, heavily, that they cheat during this time.

Enter our protagonist Richard Sherman (played by Tom Ewell) who publishes books and is often forced to sex up the titles and covers of the books he sells. He is shown sending his own wife and child away for three weeks while at the same time condemning other men for their constant pursuit of women. As the narration explains he is burdened with a large imagination. He’s also incredibly jittery.

As a victim of his own imagination he often misconstrues situations and imagines incredibly escalated scenarios. For example, in an early part of the film he imagines his own wife having a conversation with him about him cheating while she’s away. During that she states that she doesn’t imagine a thing could happen despite his assurances that women have looked at him and approached him. These are accompanied by incredibly dramatic re-enactments that look like their cut from cheap porn.

At this time he meets his neighbour who is only identified as The Girl (Marylyn Monroe ) and we never learn her name. He invites her over for a drink imagining more scenarios where he seduces her (the piano one is just comedy gold) only to find that she simply treats him as an ordinary person.

She remains remarkably constant in the film as someone who simply enjoys Richard’s company and doesn’t seem to mind that he is attracted to her or that he’s married. Even when he first attempts to kiss her and ends up falling on her in the process she simply regards it as a mistake and forgives him quickly.

Now the question some might have is that does she forgive him because she genuinely believes he’s a relatively harmless man and it was a mistake or does she just find that sort of thing acceptable and common from men? The film paints it both ways but as it progresses and Richard’s swings between wanting to be with her and his incredible guilt she’s shown as growing to like him more and more for the fact he’s just a nice guy who won’t harm her.

This is compounded in the climax of the film where Richard imagines his wife shooting him for spending time with The Girl and at long last revealing to her (The Girl) his imagination. What follows is probably the most honest point of the film for him. Richard eventually admits that his wife ultimately trusts him despite the fact that he’s in a compromising situation now. What follows is an exchange that has a timeless merit as The Girl openly shatters Richard’s perception of women by simply having an honest conversation. This culminates in a speech from her that I truly feel should be the most timeless part of the film:

“Your imagination! You think every girl’s a dope. You think a girl goes to a party and there’s some guy in a fancy striped vest strutting around giving you that I’m-so-handsome-you-can’t-resist-me look. From this she’s supposed to fall flat on her face. Well, she doesn’t fall on her face. But there’s another guy in the room, over in the corner. Maybe he’s nervous and shy and perspiring a little. First, you look past him. But then you sense that he’s gentle and kind and worried. That he’ll be tender with you, nice and sweet. That’s what’s really exciting. If I was your wife I’d be very jealous of you. I’d be very, very jealous.”

That’s a line right there that every schoolboy and schoolgirl ought to know off by heart.

There’s a lot of room in this film to argue its merits as Richard is a married man attempting (badly) to cheat on his wife and The Girl is as objectified in the film as she is explored. At the same time Richard self-satirizes his own actions as he performs them, showing his attempts as the laughable bad ideas that they are. The Girl is offered without compromise but as the same time is shown to be a person albeit with a limited outlook on the world. At the same time there is an entire masculine culture around Richard, encouraging him to cheat on his wife while she’s away. Richard’s constant emotional see-saw on the matter portrays him as a man who is made a victim of masculine stereotypes forced upon him. There’s an interesting twist to that as he’s a book publisher he’s often forced to reinforce those stereotypes to sell books. As a result he’s a victim of a very system he himself uses.

It’s only The Girl who explains to him the simple reality of men and women. Granted he goes off on another imaginary tirade shortly after but at least his head’s in the right place.

Hence why I feel this film is timeless and you should most assuredly watch it.

Despite what experts tell you, there are really only five types of characters in every single pen and paper RPG ever.

And I’m not saying something silly like “The Attention Whore.” Or “The Rules Lawyer” or “The Mary Sue.” Because those sorts of lists are the ones typically written by game masters that need to vent and bitch about a group of players they hate.

No, today I’ll talk about the five characters you see in every RPG. Period. These are characters you see in games that run for years as well as the one night only events. Most, if not all characters, are variants of the five you see below.

And to help (and for a possible meme transfer) here is the cast of the upcoming film Guardians of the Galaxy to help.

1. The Death Machine

Because if you know you’re going to kill hundreds of orcs, ninjas and cyborgs, well hey; why not enjoy your work? This character’s first response is killing and deep down, man or woman they really do like it. Sometimes stoic, sometimes jovial, the death machine is here to murder and not matter what that alignment says, the only settings on that dial in their brain is murder and resting up for murder.

2. The Back Story

This character has a deep and often traumatic past that motivates them. It can be genuinely compelling and by god the GM will rely on it for a plot hook (because lord knows no one else put this much effort into their history). Sometimes they come with a trauma switch but they are here to lay down a hurt on someone.

3. The Joke

This is a character that was created because the player thought the idea behind it was funny. Either they are short, have a funny voice or are just a bit touched in the head. There is always something very unusual about the joke character that NPCs aren’t sure how to react to. Despite this the joke character is often as effective (if a bit specialized) as the rest of the team.

4. The Min/Max

This is a character that’s taken some small penalties (like not talking or low appearance) to get some wicked payoffs. These things are freaking indestructible and are often strange (but not in a funny way). They are going to get a lot of strange looks but by god will the group rely on this character.

5. The Self-Insertion

This is the character that is just a representation of the player in the same situation. Not to be confused with a Mary-Sue (who is often made over-important) this character is on par with the rest of the team but they are, in essence, an everyday person stuck in a fantastic situation. That they will issue commentary on, frequently. A lot of the witticisms come from this character and they are often a source of great humour.

So there you go. The five characters that you end up seeing in an RPG. I hope that this doesn’t discourage any of you from making your own characters or even playing pen and paper RPGs. I think that this list tells us something: no matter what happens on any table anywhere in the world, five jackanapes are all having a damn good time.